Moving boxes – the prohibition of borer (selecting)
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Question
On Shabbat, there are 5 plastic boxes with reminder notes about divrei Torah (words of Torah),
and about secular matters of the type that it is permitted to look at on Shabbat.
The boxes are divided by topic.
Initially, the boxes are placed on a table in room no. 1,
and I want to move them in several rounds, meaning each time I take only a single box,
to a table in room no. 2, so that I won’t have too great a mental burden.
After a number of hours or minutes, I will return them to room no. 1. This too is so that I won’t have too great a mental burden.
4 questions:
1] In room no. 1 the boxes are placed relatively far from one another,
and in room no. 2, necessarily, the boxes are placed so that they touch one another.
Could this involve a violation of the prohibition of borer (selecting/sorting)?
2] Does the answer to the question change
if, in the place where the boxes touch one another,
2 out of the 5 boxes are placed on top of the other 3 boxes?
3] Does the answer to the question change
if, in the place where the boxes touch one another,
there are 2 boxes placed such that each upper box is a bit inside the box beneath it?
4] Does the answer to the question change
if there are other boxes similar to these 5 boxes
in terms of their appearance and/or in terms of their contents,
but unlike the 5 boxes that I am moving from room to room,
I am not moving the other boxes from room to room at all?
Thank you.
and about secular matters of the type that it is permitted to look at on Shabbat.
The boxes are divided by topic.
Initially, the boxes are placed on a table in room no. 1,
and I want to move them in several rounds, meaning each time I take only a single box,
to a table in room no. 2, so that I won’t have too great a mental burden.
After a number of hours or minutes, I will return them to room no. 1. This too is so that I won’t have too great a mental burden.
4 questions:
1] In room no. 1 the boxes are placed relatively far from one another,
and in room no. 2, necessarily, the boxes are placed so that they touch one another.
Could this involve a violation of the prohibition of borer (selecting/sorting)?
2] Does the answer to the question change
if, in the place where the boxes touch one another,
2 out of the 5 boxes are placed on top of the other 3 boxes?
3] Does the answer to the question change
if, in the place where the boxes touch one another,
there are 2 boxes placed such that each upper box is a bit inside the box beneath it?
4] Does the answer to the question change
if there are other boxes similar to these 5 boxes
in terms of their appearance and/or in terms of their contents,
but unlike the 5 boxes that I am moving from room to room,
I am not moving the other boxes from room to room at all?
Thank you.
Answer
Shalom and blessings,
In the situation you describe, there is no prohibition of borer, since you are not separating between different boxes and you are not sorting anything. The fact that you move them in several “rounds” does not turn the moving into an act of borer.
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